2023-11-10 03:34:14
HUIXTLA, Mexico (AP) — A group of migrants on Thursday lifted the blockade that they maintained for more than 30 hours at the main customs in southern Mexico following the authorities agreed to serve several hundred of them, while thousands of others Foreigners decided to return to the north of the country.
The suspension of the protest occurred following a dialogue held by officials of the National Guard and the National Migration Institute (INM) with the group of foreigners.
About 500 migrants accepted an offer from the authorities to receive a document that allows them a legal stay in Mexico, while another 2,000 foreigners decided to leave customs and return to the caravan on foot to try to reach the northern border of Mexico.
Since Wednesday, some 3,000 migrants had been stationed on the four lanes of the federal highway that gives access to the Comprehensive Border Transit Assistance Center (Caift) to pressure Immigration to give them temporary transit permits through the country.
The blockade of the road affected hundreds of trucks, buses and cars seeking to reach the border with Guatemala or enter Mexican territory.
“We are going forward without waiting for papers. We are not going to wait six months locked up and maybe they will not give us (anything). We are determined to move forward,” said Honduran Zulma Berrios as she returned to the path.
The woman, who was traveling with eight members of her family, reported that she had been in the border city of Tapachula for a couple of months—where the caravan left on October 30—without the Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance or the INM attending to her concerns. formalities.
Most of the caravan decided to continue towards the municipality of Escuintla, regarding 20 kilometers away, to reorganize and decide whether to continue as a contingent or separate to continue the journey on their own.
Activist Irineo Mújica, from the NGO Pueblos Sin Frontera that accompanies the group, said that the INM refused to grant multiple migratory forms – a kind of safe conduct – but offered to resolve the situation of the families because many women and children are exhausted and ill. . “Probably according to the law they would give them a humanitarian visa,” he added.
The caravan, made up mostly of Central Americans, Venezuelans and Cubans, left Tapachula at the beginning of last week with regarding 5,000 people, but due to the lack of response from the authorities for the delivery of transit permits, several thousand Foreigners have chosen to leave the group and continue the tour on their own.
Since leaving Tapachula, the caravan has traveled just regarding 70 kilometers to Escuintla.
For almost a week the group remained stationed in Huixtla where the foreigners made protests such as suturing lips and burning piñatas with the face of the head of the INM, Francisco Garduño, to demand the attention of the authorities.
On the other hand, officials from the Attorney General’s Office located 123 migrants locked in a trailer in the central town of Matehuala, state of San Luis Potosí, the INM reported in a statement on Thursday.
The agents of the Public Ministry found the migrants on Wednesday thanks to the complaint of a local who warned that he had heard cries for help in the bed of a trailer.
Of the total foreigners, 40 come from Guatemala, 35 from Nicaragua, 29 from Honduras, 14 from El Salvador, four from Ecuador and one from Cuba. Within the group, there are 89 adults and 34 children, the INM said.
Authorities did not report how the migrants became trapped in the trailer or where they were going, but these groups usually pass through those regions on their route to the United States.
The discovery of the migrants coincided with an operation carried out on Wednesday by the police in the border town of Ciudad Juárez, which arrested three alleged human traffickers when they were traveling in a vehicle with a migrant. After that operation, the authorities found ten Guatemalans trapped in a house, reported the Public Security Secretariat of the northern state of Chihuahua.
The Chihuahua Attorney General’s Office opened an investigation into the suspects, two of whom are only 16 years old.
Kidnapping and extortion are some of the dangers that migrants often face on their journey through Mexico, many of whom depend on payments to local gangs for safe passage.
The region faces new record numbers of people on the move. Through the Darién jungle alone, Panama authorities estimate that 450,000 people have crossed the area. Between January and October, Mexico received 127,796 asylum seekers, a figure that exceeds the registration for the same period last year by almost 30%.
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